Uncertainty and Precaution in Environmental Management: insights from the UPEM conferenceDescription: Jeroen van der Sluijs: Uncertainty and Precaution in Environmental Management: insights from the UPEM conference
Communication across the science-policy interface is complicated by uncertainty and ignorance associated with predictions on which to base policies. The international symposium “Uncertainty and Precaution in Environmental Management” (UPEM) addressed the philosophy, approaches and scientific tools associated with the analysis and communication of uncertainty and ignorance to decisions makers in relation to the Precautionary Principle. This paper presents a sample of highlights and insights of UPEM of relevance to the environmental modeling communities. Key insights include: (1) Systematic long-term monitoring and learning are essential. (2) More attention is needed for model structure uncertainty and equifinality. (3) Explicit value articulation in environmental assessment is essential. (4) Sophisticated uncertainty assessment and Quality Assurance methods - such as the Walker&Harremoes et al. conceptual uncertainty framework, NUSAP, and codes of uncertainty-explicit modeling practice from RIVM and EPA -, are now available and on their way of becoming main stream. (5) There is a wide range of precautionary interventions (a ban is not the only option). (6) Legal and Ethical dimensions of precaution – such as liability, burden of proof, inter- and intra generational equity - require more thought. (7) The problems that developing countries face in implementing the Precautionary Principle need more attention.
Version: Oct 2004 Filesize: 351.88 KbAdded on: 20-Oct-2004 Downloads:46240HomePageCategory: papers

Decision-making under uncertainty: Is there any other kind?Description: Decision-making under uncertainty: Is there any other kind?
Presentation by Naomi Oreskes in the Break-out session "Uncertainty, assumptions and value commitments in environemental assessment" at the Internatational workshop Interfaces between Science and Society, Milano, 27-28 November 2003.Version: 24-11-2003 Filesize: 81.05 KbAdded on: 01-Dec-2003 Downloads:19061Category: Lectures and poster presentations

Expert Elicitation: Methodological suggestions for its use in environmental health impact assessmentDescription: Expert Elicitation: Methodological suggestions for
its use in environmental health impact assessments
This document contains three parts: (1) an introduction, (2) an overview with building blocks
and methodological suggestions for a formal expert elicitation procedure; and (3) a literature
list with key sources of information used and suggestions for further reading. A glossary is
provided in Appendix 1. Part one starts with the scope and aim of this document, and continues
with a brief introduction to the issue of uncertainty in environmental Health Impact Assessments.
The potential usefulness of expert elicitation in exploring particular uncertainties
is then issued, thereby focusing on quantifiable input for which no reliable data is available
(uncertain quantities), such as a particular exposure-response-function. Part two is intended as
guidance to build a formal (i.e. well-developed, structured, systematic, transparent, traceable,
and documented) expert elicitation procedure that is tailored to the particular research question
and the uncertainties at hand. To this end, an overview (Figure 1) and possible basic
building blocks are provided. For each building block, methodological suggestions are provided
with a view to refer the reader to a range (variety) of possible methods. Yet this overview
does not claim to be exhaustive nor representative of all published methodologies for
expert elicitation.Version: Dec 2008 Filesize: 352.54 KbAdded on: 22-Jan-2009 Downloads:15111HomePageCategory: Reports

Uncertainty and climate change adaptation - a scoping studyDescription: This report reviews state-of-the-art of methods and tools available in the literature in helping
inform adaptation decisions. We focus on the assessment of climate change uncertainties.
Further, the report reviews existing frameworks for decision making under uncertainty for
adaptation to climate change. The report explores how different ways of including
uncertainty in decision making match with uncertainty information provided by the various
uncertainty assessment methods. It reviews a broad range of areas of climate change impacts
and impacted sectors of society and economy that may require a response of planned
adaptation.Version: Dec2007 Filesize: 2.33 MBAdded on: 21-Dec-2007 Downloads:14792HomePageCategory: Reports

Uncertainty Communication Issues and good practiceDescription: This report has been developed for the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. It offers background information on uncertainty communication, and contains suggestions and guidance on how to communicate uncertainties in environmental assessment reports to several target audiences in an adequate, clear, and systematic way. It is not claimed that this is the only way or the best way to communicate uncertainty information, but the guidance in this report draws upon insights from the literature, insights from an international expert workshop on uncertainty communication, and several uncertainty communication experiments in the Utrecht Policy Laboratory. Version: Dec2007 Filesize: 1.10 MBAdded on: 31-Dec-2007 Downloads:13634HomePageCategory: Reports

Global Systems FailuresDescription: Jerry Ravetz: Global Systems Failures It is now obvious that there is a problem of possible massive failures of the various systems on which modern society, indeed all of civilisation, depends. Thanks to climate change and instability, we must reckon with the prospect of at the very least the disruption of our civilisation, quite possibly its serious damage or collapse, and indeed the real possibility of an extinction of species on a scale that takes us back to early in the history of life on the planet. Should we escape from any of those fates, we still must reckon with the fragility of many other global systems. Those of national defence are threatened by the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Those of the management of wastes are already compromised by insidious pollutants. Our systems of maintaining health are seriously threatened by biological pathogens which are created by the conditions of modern technology, be they in mass over-medication, mass travel or mass food. Even the systems of communication are vulnerable to 'malware', pathogens of information which, it now seems, can at best be kept at bay and never wiped out. And suddenly the world, particularly the Anglo-Saxon part, perceives itself as threatened with a failure of systems of protection against 'terror'. This is considered by governments to be so serious as to justify the suspension of liberties that were won many hundreds of years ago. Everywhere we look, there are threats of failures of systems, many on a global scale.Version: Sept 2005 Filesize: 267.56 KbAdded on: 26-Sep-2005 Downloads:12979HomePageCategory: papers

Jeroen van der Sluijs: Towards a synthesis of qualitative and quantitative uncertainty assessmentDescription: Jeroen van der Sluijs, Penny Kloprogge, James Risbey, and Jerry RavetzTOWARDS A SYNTHESIS OF QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE UNCERTAINTY ASSESSMENT: APPLICATIONS OF THE NUMERAL, UNIT, SPREAD, ASSESSMENT, PEDIGREE (NUSAP) SYSTEM
Extended abstract prepared on invitation by the US Environmental Protection Agency for the International Workshop on Uncertainty, Sensitivity, and Parameter Estimation for Multimedia Environmental Modeling, August 19-21, 2003, Rockville, MD, US. Organised by the Federal Working Group on Uncertainty and Parameter Estimation under the Federal Interagency Steering Committee on Multimedia Environmental Modeling (ISCMEM).Version: 1 Filesize: 672.70 KbAdded on: 04-Aug-2003 Downloads:10575HomePageCategory: papers

Inclusion of Pedigree-analysis (NUSAP) in undergraduate science education: An exampleDescription: Aalborg University applies a problem-based learning model. Each semester all students form
groups. Group members formulate and agree upon a problem they want to address, within their
course of study, and write a long report on their findings (length depends on the year of study, the
number of group members etc.). Key principles for the choice problem is praxis-orientation, interdisciplinarity,
and contextualisation.
To facilitate inter-disciplinarity two supervisors – a
disciplinary and a contextual – might be associated with student groups.
A team of seven undergraduate students of Chemistry, Environmental technology and
Biotechnology study-programme at Aalborg University, and thei contextual superviso worked on the problem “What is the risk of
methane migration into houses situated on the terminated landfill “Skrænten” in Hjørring,
Denmark?” The work consisted of both a technical part and a contextual part. In
the technical part we investigated the theoretical foundation of methane production in landfills and
we measured the concentration of methane at different places at the landfill Skrænten in Hjørring.
In the contextual part a NUSAP analysis was done on the risk assessment of the gas-producing landfill
that had been carried out by the local authorities.Version: 1 Filesize: 468.75 KbAdded on: 13-Oct-2009 Downloads:10437Category: papers

Tool Catalogue of RIVM/MNP Guidance for Uncertainty Assessment and CommunicationDescription: This report contains the Tool Catalogue of the RIVM/MNP Guidance for Uncertainty Assessment and Communication, Authors: J.P. van der Sluijs, P.H.M. Janssen, A.C. Petersen, P. Kloprogge, J.S. Risbey, W. Tuinstra, J.R. Ravetz.
For each tool it gives a brief description of what it does and how it works and it provides information on:

What sorts and locations of uncertainty does this tool address?

What resources are required to use the tool?

Strengths and limitations of each tool

Some guidance on the application of the tools and hints on complementarity with other tools

Typical pitfalls of each tool

References to handbooks, user-guides, example case studies, web sites and in-house and external experts who have knowledge on and experience with each tool and who may be consulted by RIVM for further advice.

Uncertainty Assessment of VOC emissions from Paint in the Netherlands using NUSAPDescription: This study demonstrates the application of NUSAP to the case of VOC emissions from paint. By means of expert elicitation we identified critical assumptions, key sources of error and conceivable sources of motivational bias in the monitoring. We elicited pedigree and PDFs of all inputs and combined findings in a diagnostic diagram. Overall we conclude that NUSAP provides a strong diagnostic tool which yields a richer insight in sources and nature of uncertainty than Monte Carlo analysis alone. The protocol structure stimulates scrutinization of method and underlying assumptions and effectively facilitates structured creative thinking on sources of error. Version: 1 Filesize: 1.48 MBAdded on: 13-Jun-2002 Downloads:5585HomePageCategory: Reports

Paradoxes and the Future of Safety in the Global Knowledge EconomyDescription: Jerry Ravetz: Paradoxes and the Future of Safety in the Global Knowledge Economy
Governments face increasingly acute dilemmas in securing the safety of their citizens in the face of controversial technological innovations. This state of crisis results from structural features of the global knowledge economy. Governments are forced into contradictory roles, acting both as promoters of global business enterprise and also as regulators on behalf of a sophisticated and suspicious public. I explain the crisis by substituting ‘safety’ for ‘risk’ as the operative concept, and also using paradox as an explanatory tool. I produce a closed-cycle paradox, analogous to the classic Catch-22, to exhibit the contradictions in the situation. I argue that ‘safety’ is a very useful concept for policy-related science precisely because it exposes those contradictions and others latent in scientific methodology. I discuss ways of resolving these contradictions, which include the recognition of policy-critical ignorance and the adoption of the perspective of post-normal science.Version: 2 Filesize: 248.64 KbAdded on: 09-Sep-2002 Downloads:5190HomePageCategory: papers

Models as Metaphors: A New Look at ScienceDescription: Jerry Ravetz, Models as Metaphors: A New Look at Science
The research discussed in the present volume was conceived and organised around the problematic character of Integrated Assessment (IA) computer models of global change. Since they do not claim to make factual statements or reliable predictions, the questions of their scientific status, and of their use for policy, become urgent. In focus groups conducted with citizens, these models were seen as useful for enlarging the scope of people’s imagination about climate change and the role of individuals in thatproblem. In that context models were discovered to be ‘poetic’. Stimulated by this experience, this chapter explores the question of whether they could fruitfully be seen as ‘metaphors’, expressing in an indirect form our presuppositions about the problem and its possible solutions. Although this approach is very different from the traditional understanding of scientific knowledge, it may well be useful in helping science adapt to its new functions in an age of sustainability challenges and scientific uncertainty.Version: 1 Filesize: 76.08 KbAdded on: 17-Aug-2002 Downloads:5014HomePageCategory: Draft papers and reports